I Watched The New York City FC vs Orlando City FC MLS Match and It Was As Awful As I Expected

I’m not shy to let people know that I don’t watch the MLS. Pretty much ever. Once every few years though, for one reason or another I’ll watch an MLS game and every time I get reminded why I don’t ever watch it. The most recent time this occurred happened to be Sunday. In case you haven’t heard, Sunday was the first match for Manchester City’s New York affiliate New York City FC when they took on fellow expansion team Orlando City FC.

If you’ve never watched an MLS game before and chose to watch this one, you certainly didn’t feel like you missed out on anything from all those years of not watching. I mean this game was god awful. It had some big names playing with the likes of Kaka and David Villa, but the rest of the players, with the exception of Mix Diskerud, completely lack any talent. Sure it’s nice that Kaka and David Villa were there, but those players are so over the hill and past their prime they aren’t really bringing much to the table anymore.

It’s almost safe to say that the biggest star on the field was the aforementioned Diskerud, who was a member of the United States’ World Cup squad and looks like he has a bright future ahead of him. Even then Diskerud did almost nothing this match until the ball found him in the 76th minute and he took advantage by scoring a quality goal. (Sound familiar Ashley Young?)

But other then that this match had nothing. It took until the 35th minute just to get our first attempt at goal. It was easily one of the most boring matches I’ve ever seen and that’s including the stink-fest that was Manchester United’s 0-0 draw vs. Cambridge United in the FA Cup! For crying out loud goalless draws between Aston Villa and Crystal Palace are more exciting then this game was.

There’s just no one on the field that can make anything happen. At the end of the day the stories coming out of this game are going to be NYCFC’s goalkeeper Josh Saunders slamming his head onto the post in the first half and staying in the game, and that Orlando City was booked three times for diving (sound familiar Ashley Young?)

I don’t hide my feelings about the MLS. I’m not a fan of it, not even remotely close to one. I am a big American soccer fan and couldn’t care less about the MLS. I don’t care one bit about its growth or desire to be one of the top leagues in the world. I don’t think it ever will be and that doesn’t bother me at all. Why should I? I have more access to the best soccer in the world then I do to MLS, which is a way inferior product. I have no allegiances to any of the teams so there really is no reason for me to watch it. I will concede that going to the matches can be fun, and the atmosphere is tremendous at most stadiums, but the play on the field still sucks which means there’s no reason to ever watch it on TV.

At the end of the day this is a league full of aspiring Americans who aren’t good enough to play in Europe, or for the worlds biggest stars to come extend their careers by a few years before retiring. The league will never be one of the biggest in the world unless they have the best players in the world. They’ll never have the best players in the world because the best players in the world have no interest in coming here. Aspiring footballers dream of playing in, and winning the UEFA Champions League, not winning the MLS Cup. It’s that simple.

*Cue up the MLS fans who are going to now argue, eventually the MLS will be making money and will be able to pay top dollar for the top players and the players will go where the money is. Yea that still won’t happen. The KHL has more money then anyone on earth and they can’t get anyone to choose the KHL over the NHL. The NHL has history and the Stanley Cup, and Europe has history and the Champions League. That’s what matters.